Every problem is an opportunity.
That’s a motto I live by 🤘
That’s a motto I live by 🤘
TL;DR version:
Long Version:
I started to be interested in computers at early age, probably thanks to my father who had an early version of some laptop which was for me at the time incredible machine to exist. Later someone built a PC for him on which I was playing games. I really liked to play NHL99 and when NHL2001 was coming up I have decided to save all my pocket money to buy that game. After couple of months of saving I bought the game and tried to install it but it would not work because the specs of the PC were not good enough. I cried a lot at first, but then decided to figure out what exactly was missing and that is when I got “the bug” for technology. Couple months later I built a PC by myself for my father (so I could play games on it of course 🙂).
Fast forward couple of years and I am working part time as a Software tester for a Czech bank (Česká Spořitelna). That was the first time I really saw the insides of a big corporation and the all the various internal mechanics that are in play. It was unbelievable to me how something can be so inefficient and still work (some of the key systems were still running on DOS environment, project progress and management was tracked in 1 giant excel spreadsheet, etc.).
Then I joined Wunderman Thompson for a 1st full time job as a Digital Specialist. That was basically building and maintaining websites for Microsoft. I grew professionally a lot. I was engaging with international clients on daily basis, our office was multinational and had a lot of good people I could learn from. I found out that I like to take responsibility for new, challenging tasks by which I gained trust of my managers and became a Team Lead of the team where I started. That was a big challenge for me at the time mentally, because I was the youngest in that team and suddenly I was their manager (6 people was reporting to me at the beginning, later we had also offshore team in Delhi which I had responsibility for).
After 2 years I have managed to learn what I could, did a lot of soft skill courses (project management, Agile, PRINCE 2, etc.), streamlined my work and shared my experience with my team so it was time for me to move on to the next challenge.
During next couple of years, I was very busy, I was leading 2 teams for website replatforming and migration project for a global bank where we have migrated 16 markets (one team in Prague and one in Delhi), I was leading set up of email automation for a major global petrol company as Senior Project manager, organizing the workflow from the clients to our PMs and to our execution teams (emailing team, data team, 20 markets from London to Singapore).
Next step for me was working for a global pharmaceutical company based in London, for which we were delivering major replatforming of most of their websites. I was responsible for our overall delivery which was done by 2 teams of developers. In our pilot project we managed to shorten their go-to-market time from 1 year to 3 months, which was big success and was set as a benchmark.
During all of this I was also working on my side projects for small local businesses for which I was building custom websites.
These projects thought me a lot from technical and organizational sides, but especially I started to properly see how corporations function, what are their decision systems, and how they decide on investments.
After that project was up and running, I needed a new challenge and was offered a position as Global Digital Lead for Microsoft in Seattle.
I took the role and became responsible for our global (literally all continents and countries) service delivery of website creation and maintenance for Microsot. I was managing 3 teams (based in Prague, Delhi, and Beirut) with overall 50 people and reporting directly to our stakeholders in Microsoft. I was defining our product/service together with my teams to fit our clients’ needs, while maintaining required ratio of profitability, preparing and negotiating our budgets, working on new propositions for new and existing clients, designing global operations and their workflows, and presenting on pitches.
One year and one month later I was going back to Prague for personal reasons, made it home at the right time before the pandemic began and got married exactly as originally planned 💍
After that I have joined Czech blockchain startup as a Product Manager as I really started to feel the need to use my skills on something that is important to me and blockchain and cryptocurrencies were my favorite topic. It seems to me that it’s becoming more and more obvious that this technology will be moving all of us forward due to its undeniable benefits.
There, I was shaping our website and web application together with our sales, marketing and development teams. The goal was to introduce “tokenization” to Czech and Slovak markets, to open companies to new way of acquiring funds for their projects and for investors to have an opportunity to invest easily and become part of the project they are investing into, while getting a nice return on their investment.
Unfortunately, I needed to leave the company as I did not agree with some of their decisions, methods and approach to their goals.
For a short period of time I have joined ACTUM agency where I was responsible for 2 major clients, delivering our services to them while being the decision maker on our end with responsibility for “everything” (budgets, strategy, hiring, delivery, etc.), but I really wanted to be focused on crypto 100% so I became a professional crypto trader for 6 months. Luckily it was just during the 2021 bull market so it was on easy-mode.
In May 2021 I was approached by owner of ByteX to join him as Chief Product Officer to build web 3.0 solutions and centralized exchanges. There I was able to start applying all the skills I’ve harnessed previously and to work on something that matters to me – driving crypto and blockchain adoption.
I’ve worked for the last year with very skilled designers to come up with next level designs for our CEX solutions (both web and mobile apps), so user onboarding and adoption is as seamless as possible while also offering advanced functionalities to advanced users.
We strive to build applications that nobody will have problem to onboard while offering advanced functionalities for experienced users.
We aim to bring crypto related products to European, Canadian and Asian markets in a meaningful and understandable way so people can feel safe and can benefit from all the various services that crypto world is offering (trading, staking, automation, lending/borrowing, farming, NFTs, DeFi, etc.).
Now I’m working as Senior Product Manager for international company GTS Alive, where I’m responsible for portfolio of products, but the key one for me is our mobile app Alive and couple of our company websites. My job is to make sure that we are consistent with the goals, values and overall brand of our company. I get together with cross functional teams of designers, engineers, project managers and marketing folks to ensure each product fits into our larger ecosystem. I report to our Commercial Director and work with my team to create the strategy for each product. We then break down that strategy into smaller projects, each with a specific goal and set of deliverables. As we move through the project phases, I make sure we keep everything on track and ensure that our team has what they need to do their jobs effectively. Key achievement we had during my work at GTS was that we’ve built new mobile application, which is a product I lead, and raised it’s store star rating from 2.3 to 4.8 on both iOS and Android. We also now service around 360k users (40% growth compared to previous app), user activity is now also much higher (44% growth) and we have also now 35% more returning users.
From all the above I have very versatile portfolio of skills, from defining product scope, road mapping, budgeting, team leading, mentoring, interviewing, project planning to setup of workflows and business rules (and much more).
I am a natural problem solver, and my track record is 100% clear. I have always delivered what we have agreed to. And I like a good challenge.
I never bring drama or politics to the workplace. I am positive, logical, organized and always trying to bridge gaps between people and have fun at the same time.
As a Senior Product Manager, I manage our key products: mobile app for iOS and Android, web app for purchase of our identity verification products and back office systems. My job is to make sure that we are consistent with the goals, values and overall brand of our company. I get together with cross functional teams of designers, engineers, project managers and marketing folks to ensure each product fits into our larger ecosystem. I report to our Commercial Director and work with my team to create the strategy for each product. We then break down that strategy into smaller projects, each with a specific goal and set of deliverables. As we move through the project phases, I make sure we keep everything on track and ensure that our team has what they need to do their jobs effectively.
Key achievement we had during my work at GTS was that we’ve built new mobile application, which is a product I lead, and raised it’s store star rating from 2.3 to 4.8 on both iOS and Android.
We also now service around 360k users (40% growth compared to previous app), user activity is now also much higher (44% growth) and we have also now 35% more returning users.
As a Chief Product Officer at Bytex my focus is to bring newest Web 3.0 solutions and our centralized exchange solutions (CEX mobile and website applications) to customers and businesses in meaningful way, breaking the barrier between new technology and user adoption.
I am also defining processes and making sure we’re spending our time as effectively as possible to deliver the best products to our existing and future clients.
We strive to build applications that nobody will have problem to onboard while offering advanced functionalities for experienced users.
We aim to bring crypto related products to European, Canadian and Asian markets in a meaningful and understandable way so people can feel safe and can benefit from all the various services that crypto world is offering (trading, staking, automation, lending/borrowing, farming, NFTs, DeFi, etc.).
I work closely with our senior leadership planning out our roadmap and priorities, with Product Owners on internal project prioritization, with Designers on ideation of UX and UI and conducting with all of them thorough research of ever changing crypto environment.
As a Product Manager/Product Owner at XIXOIO I’m helping to shape up our web app for clients and dealers to best suit their needs, while introducing new features. I’m conducting client/dealer interviews and testing, brainstorming with our internal team about possibilities of future development, defining Epics and User Stories for our development team, preparing testing scenarios and doing high-level testing myself.
Since the time I started on this position we’ve completely rebuilt and innovated the way how our app looks and works, launched new website and on-boarded new clients while using cutting edge technologies.
As a Global Digital Lead I am responsible for leading 3 teams of web developers situated across the world (Prague, Beirut, Delhi), making sure these teams deliver assigned projects according to agreed timelines and in very high quality standards for our key customer, Microsoft.
I am helping our clients to develop and shape the vision for their business, strategy and marketing road map for their digital services and drive these efforts within our teams to successful deployment.
We’re also reviewing and updating our processes constantly to make sure our operation is streamlined and effective.
We’re always trying to improve our service to stay ahead of the curve.
I am collaborating with our client, driving new projects, efficiencies, R&D and delivering results in high profile environment.
Managing and leading 2 teams (1 in Prague, 1 in Delhi) of AEM (Adobe Experience Manager) specialists for our London based client, HSBC.
We’re dedicated team of AEM experts, helping our client HSBC to build new websites for their global operation, building websites from Canada, London, Hongkong to Australia (and many more).
We’re in daily cooperation with internal HSBC AEM developers, project managers and designers making sure that the system is easily author-able and aligned with AEM philosophy as much as we can.
For this client we adopted their agile approach for development, took part in component design, UAT and rollouts. Overall we’ve onboarded and migrated over 20 markets onto the new platform.
We’re the guardians of the platform and of the websites we produce, making sure that everything is according to modern website principles and in line with best AEM practices.
Managing team of 5-8 web content editors/creators for Central and Easter Europe for our main customer, Microsoft.
Assigning tasks to team members, controlling correct execution, cooperating with the clients as well as with other departments to make sure we provide best service we can.
Participating on intentional calls in both presenter and audience roles.
Reporting to the higher management on current matters/issues/opportunities/challenges.
I took part in many soft-skills classes, for example Project leading (both agile and non-agile), Time management, Team Leading, Presentation skills, Negotiation, Branding, Use of social media, etc.
Work in a team of 5-8 people.
Management and creation of websites for Microsoft. Mostly using HTML, CSS or an internal CMS.
Communication with clients, advising in both design and functionality.
Creating documentation and guidance for new tools.
After a year I became CEE Team Lead Deputy – Started to assign tasks to the team members, being responsible for their correct execution.
For additional information about my previous employments, certificates and education, please see my LinkedIn profile
In my spare time I like to enjoy following the newest trends in IT, especially, but not only, with regards to crypto currencies, which I also trade on a regular basis. I follow blockchain technology development in general as well as more traditional fields like computing, social networks, marketing and overall IT news so I’m in touch with everything that’s new or on the horizon.
For fun I like to do some PC gaming, movie watching, going to concerts, doing a BBQ with with my friends, etc.
I’m also very outdoorsy person, I like bouldering, cycling, hiking, go-karting. During winter season I enjoy snowboarding, especially outside of the ski slope in fresh powder snow 🏂